Page 78 - Collected_Works_of_Poe.pdf

and courage, an entrance into the window, from the rod, might have been thus effected. - By reaching to the
distance of two feet and a half (we now suppose the shutter open to its whole extent) a robber might have
taken a firm grasp upon the trellis-work. Letting go, then, his hold upon the rod, placing his feet securely
against the wall, and springing boldly from it, he might have swung the shutter so as to close it, and, if we
imagine the window open at the time, might even have swung himself into the room.

"I wish you to bear especially in mind that I have spoken of a _very_ unusual degree of activity as requisite to
success in so hazardous and so difficult a feat. It is my design to show you, first, that the thing might possibly
have been accomplished: - but, secondly and _chiefly_, I wish to impress upon your understanding the _very
extraordinary_ - the almost preternatural character of that agility which could have accomplished it.

"You will say, no doubt, using the language of the law, that 'to make out my case,' I should rather undervalue,
than insist upon a full estimation of the activity required in this matter. This may be the practice in law, but it
is not the usage of reason. My ultimate object is only the truth. My immediate purpose is to lead you to place
in juxta-position, that _very unusual_ activity of which I have just spoken with that _very peculiar_ shrill (or
harsh) and _unequal_ voice, about whose nationality no two persons could be found to agree, and in whose
utterance no syllabification could be detected."

At these words a vague and half-formed conception of the meaning of Dupin flitted over my mind. I seemed
to be upon the verge of comprehension without power to comprehend - men, at times, find themselves upon
the brink of remembrance without being able, in the end, to remember. My friend went on with his discourse.

"You will see," he said, "that I have shifted the question from the mode of egress to that of ingress. It was my
design to convey the idea that both were effected in the same manner, at the same point. Let us now revert to
the interior of the room. Let us survey the appearances here. The drawers of the bureau, it is said, had been
rifled, although many articles of apparel still remained within them. The conclusion here is absurd. It is a mere
guess - a very silly one - and no more. How are we to know that the articles found in the drawers were not all
these drawers had originally contained? Madame L'Espanaye and her daughter lived an exceedingly retired
life - saw no company - seldom went out - had little use for numerous changes of habiliment. Those found
were at least of as good quality as any likely to be possessed by these ladies. If a thief had taken any, why did
he not take the best - why did he not take all? In a word, why did he abandon four thousand francs in gold to
encumber himself with a bundle of linen? The gold _was _abandoned. Nearly the whole sum mentioned by
Monsieur Mignaud, the banker, was discovered, in bags, upon the floor. I wish you, therefore, to discard from
your thoughts the blundering idea of _motive_, engendered in the brains of the police by that portion of the
evidence which speaks of money delivered at the door of the house. Coincidences ten times as remarkable as
this (the delivery of the money, and murder committed within three days upon the party receiving it), happen
to all of us every hour of our lives, without attracting even momentary notice. Coincidences, in general, are
great stumbling-blocks in the way of that class of thinkers who have been educated to know nothing of the
theory of probabilities - that theory to which the most glorious objects of human research are indebted for the
most glorious of illustration. In the present instance, had the gold been gone, the fact of its delivery three days
before would have formed something more than a coincidence. It would have been corroborative of this idea
of motive. But, under the real circumstances of the case, if we are to suppose gold the motive of this outrage,
we must also imagine the perpetrator so vacillating an idiot as to have abandoned his gold and his motive
together.

"Keeping now steadily in mind the points to which I have drawn your attention - that peculiar voice, that
unusual agility, and that startling absence of motive in a murder so singularly atrocious as this - let us glance
at the butchery itself. Here is a woman strangled to death by manual strength, and thrust up a chimney, head
downward. Ordinary assassins employ no such modes of murder as this. Least of all, do they thus dispose of
the murdered. In the manner of thrusting the corpse up the chimney, you will admit that there was something
_excessively outre_ - something altogether irreconcilable with our common notions of human action, even
when we suppose the actors the most depraved of men. Think, too, how great must have been that strength